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Where many issues arise is when either person is too domineering/controlling.
Some men believe that being strong means coming off as a drill instructor.
And some women take being 'strong' to the extreme and emotionally castrate men.
A happy medium is the key.
I sometimes think some people get confused between marriage and war, you know?
Marriage: you generally agree to treat each other great, share your stuff, and face life as a team. You work out a division of activities that makes most sense. You promise not to attack each other. You are the one person the other can trust unto the grave. You see each other naked. You do boning. Every night, you go to sleep and make yourselves completely vulnerable to each other, confident you will wake up alive and unharmed. You probably make babies and you sacrifice most fun so they can become teens and resent you for ruining their lives. Later, they change their tune when they want your grandkids babysat. When you look back on this, you see all that you did together and are content (we hope). Your goal was a good life together, and for the most part, you achieved that.
War: you cannot agree to live in peace. Your countries are really mad at each other and decide to start killing each other. This ain't over until one side has gotten a lot of people killed. You use the sneakiest tactics possible. If your enemy is vulnerable, you will let him/her have it both barrels. You may break all sorts of understood conventions in order to get an advantage. You each want dominance over the other and will spend yourselves half broke to get it. Probably, at the end, the loser is half destroyed. Congratulations, winner, you win whatever it is you win. Your goal was to settle the question of dominance, and whatever has survived you, you can dominate.
I do not understand embarking on marriage and then treating it like war.
[quote=arctic_gardener;44570403]Fair enough, but it also works in reverse. Many men would love to have wives who can change the oil, fix a flat tire, or repair a broken lawnmower. Some of us men are sick of playing the role of protector or "maintenance man". Why can't a woman protect her husband? Think about it. (Or just get a couple of Rottweilers and take the pressure off both spouses).
John loves the fact that I work side by side with him on projects. I love power tools. He has no problem cleaning up the kitchen if I'm working on a project.
Oh wait, we're starting the decks today. I hate that project. Hmmm maybe I should play the girlie card
Ah no. I'm far better at using the power washer then he is. I'll have to suck it up and do it. There's the down side of being capable. Our poor neighbor is being pushed by her husband to be more like me and she's not happy about it. She said I planted that seed in his brain and I'm a bad influence
I know my way around a gun and I could easily protect him, those Rotts generate too much waste.
It's a shame the OP hasn't come back to clarify his earlier comments. I'd still like to know what he meant by calming women down. I'm not certain I understand what traits he finds inappropriate behavior and what it means for a woman to wear the pants in the family. Is he referring to working and making a bigger paycheck, seeking higher education, having an opinion about issues that are more complex than what to have for dinner, or something else entirely?
Never, ever, compare a wife with your mother. Your wife must get awfully tired of hearing that, and though you didn't tell us that you tell your wife that, I'm betting that you do.
If you live in a community property state, half of your salary is legally hers anyway, so if she wants to buy a tennis bracelet, she could do that just for herself. I would never do that, 1) because I only want jewelry as a gift from someone who loves me and wants me to have it, and I never hint about that stuff. I also wear very little jewelry and 2) I think it works out best when there is a meeting of the minds regarding expenditures.
But your usage of the word "refuse" gives me the impression that you have taken control of how money gets spent in your marriage. Ugh.
It's a shame the OP hasn't come back to clarify his earlier comments. I'd still like to know what he meant by calming women down. I'm not certain I understand what traits he finds inappropriate behavior and what it means for a woman to wear the pants in the family. Is he referring to working and making a bigger paycheck, seeking higher education, having an opinion about issues that are more complex than what to have for dinner, or something else entirely?
Good luck getting any clarity from most such folks.
Because "inappropriate behavior" is really "behavior I don't like or expect", usually hiding behind the projection that "god doesn't like it". Since that sounds as bad as it is, there's usually at least 3 levels of indirection in such folk's brains, so that they're not clear even to themselves what they mean. All they know is that "uppity women" are some kind of existential threat, to them and to society. They know what they're comfortable and uncomfortable with and they live in an echo chamber of like minded people.
It's just a misogynist version of keeping the "inferior" races separate from the whites. Women need to be in their "proper place", doing their assigned "proper role" and never aspiring to anything else. In less extreme forms it involves grudging acceptance of women having careers and options but sniping constantly from the peanut gallery about how emotional and crazy and unstable and irrational they are, etc.
The OP would likely say, Trump-like, that he loves and respects women and has good relationships with them but that it's "obviously" unnatural for a woman to "wear the pants in the family" and it is dumb for them to do that because it "repels" men. That's as specific as he'll get.
I wouldn't trouble myself over it much. There are plenty of those kinds of guys in the world but they are squarely in society's rear-view mirror, thankfully.
It's a shame the OP hasn't come back to clarify his earlier comments. I'd still like to know what he meant by calming women down. I'm not certain I understand what traits he finds inappropriate behavior and what it means for a woman to wear the pants in the family. Is he referring to working and making a bigger paycheck, seeking higher education, having an opinion about issues that are more complex than what to have for dinner, or something else entirely?
Just guessing that he is referring to traditional roles that he may have experienced in his family or possibly in a religious upbringing. It is certainly true that many younger men defer to their wives to a much greater extent than in previous generations. This is partly due to what the OP describes as feminism, but also it stems from the rootless nature of life today. So many traditional mores and ways of living have been swept aside so rapidly that many people are disillusioned with the lack of shared principles on which to build a peaceful, stable life. It's not surprising that a purely political approach has gained a foothold -- and politics today is all about enfranchising new groups and denigrating traditional ones. Since the male-dominant society is traditional in our culture, it should not be surprising that it is being devalued, mocked and discarded.
Given the history of Western societies over the past half-century, these changes were bound to occur. I don't think they have made us a happier people, though. I see so many grim and determined women, so mant timid, rudderless men (or the opposite -- violence/brutality freaks) and so many incurious and undisciplined children. Not a healthy picture -- nearly as unhealthy, in fact, as the chattel status of women and children in the bad old days. I'm old enough to remember when compassion and respect for women was the goal of the adult men I knew: the "default setting", so to speak. It was part of what it meant to BE a man. I have always worked side-by-side with my wife at home, and deferred to her opinion when she was right, because I was taught that that was a major share of what love was all about...and nothing has come along to disabuse me of that belief.
We don't claim to be anything other than a secular democratic republic. The claim to be a "Christian nation" is the claim of a particular group of evangelical Christians who make the claim apparently without realizing that most of the founding fathers were deists who held doctrinal positions that would make their heads explode.
In point of fact, the Bible, having been written two millennia and more ago, has nothing much to say about the specifics of cultural norms and expectations. Today's fashions and realities didn't exist then.
A hundred years ago, evangelicals thought a woman showing ankle was immoral. Then it was showing calf, then knee, and today, upright Christian women flounce about in outfits that their grandparents would consider scandalous and salacious and but which are no longer preached against. Christians go to movies and watch TV as well, because they simply gave up trying to declare such things sinful, probably sometime in the 1950s or 1960s. I guarantee you that you participate in society without thinking about it, in ways that would make someone from your religious tribe who visited in a time machine from 1916, totally appalled.
Your ideas about "biblical roles" are no different than ideas about "biblical modesty" or "biblical morality". They are all indirectly derived post-hoc justifications for southern Bible Belt cultural norms. Fundamentalist Christians in Europe or Turkey or China would think them pointless and silly and would condemn you for failing to adhere to THEIR traditional norms.
So you're going to have to think of better arguments and rationalizations for your positions than the ones you have if you want to convince most people here that women should fulfill your desired "role".
Just guessing that he is referring to traditional roles that he may have experienced in his family or possibly in a religious upbringing. It is certainly true that many younger men defer to their wives to a much greater extent than in previous generations. This is partly due to what the OP describes as feminism, but also it stems from the rootless nature of life today. So many traditional mores and ways of living have been swept aside so rapidly that many people are disillusioned with the lack of shared principles on which to build a peaceful, stable life. It's not surprising that a purely political approach has gained a foothold -- and politics today is all about enfranchising new groups and denigrating traditional ones. Since the male-dominant society is traditional in our culture, it should not be surprising that it is being devalued, mocked and discarded.
Given the history of Western societies over the past half-century, these changes were bound to occur. I don't think they have made us a happier people, though. I see so many grim and determined women, so mant timid, rudderless men (or the opposite -- violence/brutality freaks) and so many incurious and undisciplined children. Not a healthy picture -- nearly as unhealthy, in fact, as the chattel status of women and children in the bad old days. I'm old enough to remember when compassion and respect for women was the goal of the adult men I knew: the "default setting", so to speak. It was part of what it meant to BE a man. I have always worked side-by-side with my wife at home, and deferred to her opinion when she was right, because I was taught that that was a major share of what love was all about...and nothing has come along to disabuse me of that belief.
So I read through some of the OP's past posts and found bragging references to a three-some with a former girlfriend. I'm having a hard time reconciling that with the image of him as a fundamentalist Christian with traditional values.
So I read through some of the OP's past posts and found bragging references to a three-some with a former girlfriend. I'm having a hard time reconciling that with the image of him as a fundamentalist Christian with traditional values.
Did someone describe him as a fundamentalist Christian? Many religious people are not fundamentalists. Some are not even Christians.
Did someone describe him as a fundamentalist Christian? Many religious people are not fundamentalists. Even Christians.
Yes, in a prior post, which is why I was reading through his posting history. I was trying to get a better handle on him given he hasn't been back to the thread to address some of these questions.
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Your wife must get awfully tired of hearing that, and though you didn't tell us that you tell your wife that, I'm betting that you do.
